SEATTLE, April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumer real estate Web site Zillow.com today announced the addition of 45-degree, low-altitude aerial photos to its home valuation and data with the integration of bird's eye images from Microsoft's Virtual Earth platform. The images, a first for any consumer real estate site, provide stunning views of a home and its surroundings from four directions, giving home buyers another valuable piece of information about a potential home purchase.

The images are shown on Zillow home details pages, alongside satellite maps, parcel information, Zestimate™ home valuations and individual home data. Currently, bird's eye imagery can be found on home searches in major cities such as San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston and Las Vegas. Additional coverage will be added later this year.

"I thought overhead satellite images were fantastic, until I saw the bird's eye images, which are taken from low-flying planes at an angle which gives remarkable depth," said Lloyd Frink, Zillow co-founder and president. "A home shopper's ability to get a genuine feel for a house and neighborhood has just taken a giant leap forward."

Bird's eye images, taken by a Microsoft partner, Pictometry, one of the world's largest digital, oblique aerial photography companies, are captured via cameras pointed at a 45-degree angle from low-flying airplanes. These photos are then shown on Zillow.com as 360-degree panoramas that can be viewed from four compass directions. Bird's eye images are shown alongside Zillow's satellite and street maps to give customers a much richer picture of the individual home and neighborhood.

To see a bird's eye view, enter an address in the Zillow.com search box and click on the Zestimate home result. Bird's eye views are shown on individual home details pages for cities where the images are currently available.

"Virtual Earth is an incredibly powerful platform for real estate as it allows users to literally see up close what millions of homes and surrounding neighborhoods look like," said Stephen Lawler, general manager of the Virtual Earth Business Unit at Microsoft. "We're excited to integrate our services into Zillow.com and be part of the first consumer real estate Web site to use and apply this cutting-edge mapping technology."

In addition to adding bird's eye images, Zillow.com also continues to add to its database of home information and Zestimates. Zillow's beta service now has data on more than 65 million homes, with enough data to produce a Zestimate valuation on more than 47 million homes.

To find the Zestimate on a home or virtually explore neighborhood home values, visit http://www.zillow.com/. Read about or comment on updated Zillow news and observations in the Zillow corporate blog at http://www.zillowblog.com/.

About Zillow.com

Zillow.com launched its beta service in February 2006, with the goal of empowering consumers with tools and information to transform how they buy and sell homes. The first step is providing valuations and data on more than 65 million U.S. homes -- and growing. Zillow was started by a group of Internet veterans, including Expedia founder and former CEO Rich Barton and former Expedia Senior Vice President Lloyd Frink. Located in Seattle, Zillow raised $32 million in funding from two leading venture capital firms, Benchmark Capital and Technology Crossover Venture (TCV), as well as employees, directors and private investors.

NOTE: Zillow.com™ and Zestimate™ are all trademarks of Zillow, Inc.

SOURCE: Zillow.com

CONTACT: Amy Bohutinsky of Zillow.com, +1-206-470-7139, or
press@zillow.com

Web site: http://www.zillow.com/